The Dead Lands

THE DEAD LANDS

PRODUCTION NOTES

GFC/FIGHTERTOWN IN ASSOCIATION WITH

XYZ FILMS THE NEW ZEALAND FILM COMMISSION NEW ZEALAND FILM PRODUCTION FUND TRUST

TE MANGAI PAHO IMAGES & SOUND LIP SYNC AND DAY TRIPPER FILMS PRESENTS

A MATTHEW METCALFE PRODUCTION OF A TOA FRASER FILM JAMES ROLLESTON LAWRENCE MAKOARE “THE DEAD LANDS”

TE KOHE TŪHAKA XAVIER HORAN GEORGE HENARE RAUKURA TUREI AND RENA OWEN

CASTING LIZ MULLANE MAKE-UP, HAIR AND PROSTHETICS DESIGNER DAVINA LAMONT COSTUME DESIGNER BARBARA DARRAGH

STUNT COORDINATORSTEVE MCQUILLANSOUND DESIGNER JAMES HAYDAY

MUSIC BY DON McGLASHAN LINE PRODUCER CATHERINE MADIGAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER GRANT MAJOR

EDITOR DAN KIRCHER DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY LEON NARBEY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER PETER HAMPDEN

CO-PRODUCERSTAINUI STEPHENS NORMAN MERRY PRODUCER GLENN STANDRING

WRITTEN BY GLENN STANDRING PRODUCED BY MATTHEW METCALFE DIRECTED BY TOA FRASER

A New Zealand/United Kingdom Co-production

CONTENTS

1) cover page/credit block

2) CONTENTS

3) FACT SHEET

4) SYNOPSIS

5-10) ABOUT THE FILM

11-16) ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

17-21) ABOUT THE CAST

22-30) ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

31) ABOUT THE COMPANIES

32) LEAD CAST & KEY CREW

THE DEAD LANDS

FACT SHEET

GFC/Fightertownin association with

XYZ Films, New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand Film Production Fund Trust, Te Māngai Paho, Images Sound,Lip Sync and Day Tripper Films.

International sales:XYZ Films

Australasian distribution: Transmission Films

New Zealand broadcaster: Māori Television Service

Duration: 95 mins (tbc)

Language: Māori with English subtitles

Rating: R16 NZ (tbc)

Release date:

Director: Toa Fraser

Producer: Matthew Metcalfe

Writer/Producer: Glenn Standring

Executive Producer: Peter Hampden

Co-Producer: Tainui Stephens

Co-Producer: Norman Merry

Director of Photography: Leon Narbey

Production Designer: Grant Major

Editor: Dan Kircher

Music Composed by: Don McGlashan

Costume Designer: Barbara Darragh

Make-up, Hair and Prosthetics Designer: Davina Lamont

Sound Designer: James Hayday

VFX Supervisor: George Zwier

Stunt Co-ordinator: Steve McQuillan

Maori martial arts expert: Jamus Webster

Maori language translator:Professor Scotty Te Manahau Morrison

Starring:

James Rolleston as Hongi

Lawrence Makoare as The Warrior

Te Kohe Tūhaka as Wīrepa

Xavier Horan as Rangi

George Henare as Tāne

Raukura Turei as Mehe

Rena Owen as Hongi’s Grandmother

Contact: (publicist details)

SHORT SYNOPSIS:

Hongi (James Rolleston) - a Māori chieftain’s teenage son - must avenge his father's murder in order to bring peace and honour to the souls of his loved ones after his tribe is slaughtered through an act of treachery. Vastly outnumbered by a band of villains, led by Wīrepa (Te Kohe Tūhaka), Hongi’s only hope is to pass through the feared and forbidden Dead Lands and forge an uneasy alliance with the mysterious "Warrior" (Lawrence Makoare), a ruthless fighter who has ruled the area for years.

LONG SYNOPSIS

Hongi (James Rolleston) a Māori chieftain’s teenage son, witnesses an act of desecration of ancestors’ bones by the villainous Wīrepa (Te Kohe Tūhaka), the son of a rival chief. Wīrepa blames Hongi, but Hongi’s father Tāne (George Henare) is too clever to be taken in by this. As Wīrepa and his men depart, it is plain that war between the two tribes is inevitable.

But Wīrepa doesn’t go home. His ambition is greater and more selfish that that. He wants glory. Personal glory. He attacks Hongi’s tribe in the night, as they sleep. The following day, Hongi learns his father is dead and feels the sting of his aunt’s tongue when she blames him for it all. But it steels Hongi too. He is now bent on seeking revenge against Wīrepa. Hongi knows he must do what tradition tells him: he must follow Wīrepa and make him pay. Or die trying.

But he immediately discovers a terrible truth. Wīrepa has taken a short cut, through the Dead Lands, a fearful place where a powerful tribe lived until they all disappeared in an instant.

On his first night in the Dead Lands, Hongi sees the ghost of his grandmother (Rena Owen). She scolds him for his stupidity. Alone, he will not kill Wīrepa and she will not get revenge for the death of her son, Hongi’s father. She guides him to The Warrior (Lawrence Makoare), a ruthless fighter who lives in the Dead Lands who is perhaps not a man at all, but who might help Hongi, for a price.

Hongi finds The Warrior, a monster of a man with three eerily beautiful wives, and begs him for help. The Warrior, possibly a demon, may choose to eat him or he may choose to help the young man. After some harshly truthful words from his senior wife, The Warrior decides to help Hongi.

The two unlikely allies travel through the Dead Lands, battling their way to seek Hongi’s vengeance. Their fateful encounters include an intense and brutal fight with a formidable and beautiful female warrior, Mehe (Raukura Turei).

For Hongi it is a journey to adulthood and the discovery of his true leadership skills. For The Warrior – redemption and release from this life.

ABOUT THE FILM

The Dead Lands is entertainment, a bold and energetic revenge story centred around the journey of a young man to adulthood. It’s a Maori martial arts movie in the global martial arts genre. It’s taking the exotic look of the New Zealand locations, people, fighting styles, costumes and language to the world in a youthful, popular format.

The Dead Lands is set in a time when Māori were the only human beings in their environment - the land now known as New Zealand/Aotearoa. It was Te Ao Māori, the Māori World and New Zealand was the whole world. Perhaps 500-600 years ago - long before contact with Europeans and colonisation.

The film is a very modern presentation of what ancient Māori life might have been, with action and themes based on Mau Rākau, Māori martial arts. The story is connected to the present day by the threads of oral history and the creative imaginations of the filmmakers.

The Dead Lands draws on and modernises the Māori warrior tradition to create a gripping story involving spiritual insult, physical desecration, knife-edge alliances and a desperate overland chase for revenge.

The filmstars James Rolleston, now aged 17 - the then 11-year-old star of Taika Waititi’s box office smash hit Boy and Cliff Curtis’ co-star in the critically acclaimed The Dark Horse – as Hongi. Lawrence Makoare (The Hobbit, Die Another Day, Lord of the Rings) plays The Warrior.

It also stars Te Kohe Tūhaka (Sione’s 2: Unfinished Business), Xavier Horan (Dean Spanley, No.2), George Henare (Once Were Warriors), Rena Owen (Once Were Warriors) and newcomer Raukura Turei.

It is directed by Toa Fraser (Giselle,Dean Spanley, No.2), from a script by Glenn Standring (Perfect Creature, The Irrefutable Truth about Demons)and produced by Matthew Metcalfe(Dean Spanley, Beyond The Edge).

The Dead Lands features high-octane, hard physical hand-to-hand combat showcasing extreme athleticism, lethally precise hand-crafted weapons and choreography of startling beauty and ferocity.

The ancient Māori world was a tribal society, with complex and shifting relationships of allies and enemies. Intertribal warfare involved the skilled use of deadly handheld weapons. There were battle rituals, codes of honour, and dignity or shame in death – these and deep spiritual beliefs drive and underpin the story.

It was a time when the spirit world was so close to the physical world as to be a part of everyday life. A person’s ancestors walked alongside him/her, with all the personal accountability that demands. Just as Hongi is goaded and guided by his dead grandmother, The Warrior is haunted by his ancestors, seeing them at every turn, judging him - constant reminders of his despicable past.

The extended family in its broadest sense (including the ancestors) was the paramount loyalty. To be a warrior was a respected position, holding high status or mana. There is mana associated with every relationship and every action. Violation of mana is a serious provocation, which is what the villain Wīrepa tries to manipulate by desecrating his own ancestors’ bones and blaming Hongi.

Many years ago in the place known as the Dead Lands, there was a disastrous calamity, which has a strong mythical hold on the imaginations of people outside that desolate area. It’s a place that has become decayed or has lost its sense of life because of the past misdeeds of the man - some say demon - who lives there.They regard it with extreme fear. Although his grandmother warns him of the danger, Hongi knows he has no option but to find the one man living therewho has a terrible reputation for violence and dark deeds. This is The Warrior.

The fact that the film is set far beyond today’s world in the ancient past means it includes some creative leaps of the imagination, but many aspects of the Māori world view have been handed down the generations and are presented in The Dead Lands.

In the words of Professor ScottyTe Manahau Morrison, who translated the script: “There's a long history of warfare and conflict but there’s also a strong element of protocol around how you conduct yourselves during warfare. There's having respect for your enemy. Even if you’re about to send them to the long night, there’s a particular protocol to follow before you actually annihilate your enemy. Some of Wīrepa’s tribe don’t follow protocol and it reflects back badly on them. The ironic thing is that Wīrepa’s pursuit of mana is so strong that along the way he loses mana by not following proper protocols within the realm of warfare.”

Māori Mau Rākau (martial arts) expert Jamus Webster says: “Our warriors believed it’s not honourable to die of old age, but to die in war or battle is an honourable way to die.”

Producer Matthew Metcalfe: “It was about honour, family, blood, ancestors. It’s not just about men trying to kill each other, it’s about men trying to kill each other with purpose, with a sense of honour, with a sense of “this is what we must do because our ancestors demand it of us.

“It’s like The Raid or Apocalypto. This is Māori before Europeans came. This is Māori when they had their own empire in New Zealand, when it was tribe against tribe. It was about honour, fighting to the death and how your ancestors thought of you.”

Another powerful force was how a person would be regarded by their descendants, the future generations. As he departs on his journey, Hongi asks his sister to “tell stories about me” if he doesn’t return.

Some have said it’s the Māori Game of Thrones. Tribe against tribe. Action brings reaction. Provocation. Revenge. Plotting, politics, alliances of convenience, the tightrope walk between life and death. Hand-to-hand fighting to the death in savage yet beautiful lands. And yet this is not “Middle Earth”, New Zealand’s famous place in the international movie world. It’s a different landscape altogether, with the dynamic energy of its people inseparable from the wildness of the land.

Director Toa Fraser: “I really wanted to do something that was new territory for a New Zealand movie in an historical context - something punchy and pop culture. I grew up watching movies like Commando, The Last Boy Scout, Lethal WeaponandDie Hard - a whole bunch of action movies. So I wanted to do something in that realm.

“You can watch this movie on a pure action genre level and enjoy the fights and the visceral kick of the whole thing,butbecause the performances are fantastic and the world of the movie is beautiful,it will give audiences a snapshot of New Zealand that they haven’t seen before.”

Co-producer Tainui Stephens: “We’ve endeavoured to show action that is very firmly based in the Māori world, in the world of Māori martial arts and in the world of Māori thinking. Every culture around the world has its own way of dealing with conflict. Many cultures have martial arts traditions and many of these traditions have become celebrated in the action film genre. This is a first chance for the killing arts of the Polynesian peoples to be explored in this kind of entertainment.”

Metcalfe sees it also as a coming of age story: “Hongi learns that being a warrior is not just about violence, being a warrior is about being a leader. And he understands that violence and carnage is not the answer. It doesn’t bring his loved ones back.”

Stephens: “It’s a story of a young man who, like many young men, aspires to strength, bravery, warrior-dom and realises in the end that his particular gifts lie with medicine, leadership and peace.”

Director Toa Fraser says it’s an action martial arts movie that also operates as a psychological journey: “I was really excited to work with Lawrence and James because I felt that they brought such an interesting conversation about the macho, warrior kind of masculinity and about vulnerability.The whole film holds that conversation about machismo meets vulnerability and that’s really important to me.”

He says that’s a conversation that has not been held in New Zealand, with its rugby-playing, proud-to-be warriors male culture: “I think we have neglected the conversation about vulnerability and I was interested to open the curtain a little bit.”

Fraser says casting James Rolleston as Hongi had a personal resonance for him:

“James Rolleston is a superstar. He has the X-factor and it was fantastic to work with him. James was 16 at the time of filming and that was personally fulfilling for me, given that I came to New Zealand (from London) when I was 15. I remember thinking at the time that the stuff the movie talks about - male camaraderie, athleticism and boys having fights - was the kind of thing that I felt is the best of the Pacific and best of New Zealand. So I hoped that we could give that sort of gift to James: the joy of life in New Zealand that I experienced when I was his age.”

Metcalfe on Rolleston: “He’s got that quality that punches off the screen andhe’s able to make Hongi more than just this kid who wants to go and seek revenge. He gives him three dimensions, making him someone who not only wants to fight but has an emotional journey to go through as well.”

Stephens: “James is a beautiful young man. He has clear abilities as an actor and he’s already got success in that regard. The thing that I was unsure of in the beginningwas hisMāori language abilities. So it was with some concern that Ifirst listened to his language. And what thrilled me is that although he’s not a fluent speaker, he had enough exposure as a young child, and being a part of the Kapa Haka performing arts scene, that his articulation is excellent. Very natural.”

Fraser says he didn’t know what to expect when Lawrence Makoare came to audition for the role of The Warrior: “He was really nervous. He was worried about his lines because he had been learning the lines for The Hobbit at the time and he had three different languages in his head. We worked together and he did it in one take and that was good, but then we did another take and he cried, I cried, and everyone else in the room cried. It was an incredibly sacred moment and I remember thinking that if we don’t get the chance to work with Lawrence in this role, the movie will definitely suffer.”

Stephens says he has followed Makoare’s career of playing character villains and “I thought he would eat up this leading role. I can’t think of anyone else who could have done it. Lawrence is phenomenal. He’s a lovely man, with a huge heart and a look that's devastating, which is exactly what we needed for the character. But also there is a softness - because The Warrior needs to not just be a demon, but he needs to be hiding his humanity, which has to be revealed. Not everyone can do that, but Lawrence does.”

Metcalfe says they were initially worried that The Warrior would be one-dimensional, “that he would be all about violence and fighting, but Lawrence has bought his years of experience to give depth to this complex character, which I think will enable the audience to understand and connect with the story at a much deeper level.”

Fraser enjoyed working with Te Kohe Tūhaka (Wīrepa) because of their shared background in theatre. “We had a very simple way of communicating to each other that was all about acting technique and theatre directing tricks and so we had a great time.”

Stephens says that because Māori is Tūhaka’s first language, and through his acting experience, he was able to add extra dialogue and contribute more options. “He brings the depth of his innate and very true Māoriness to the role.”

The team searched hard to find the right young woman to play the Māori warrior woman Mehe, who shines in an intensely physical combat encounter with The Warrior. Their patience was rewarded when they found Raukura Turei, an architect by profession, who is fluent in Māori language, and is also an athlete and Kapa Haka performer who has acted in three short films.